National or Regional Currency: Pakistani Rupee, PKR
Population: 174,578,558 (July 2009 est.)
Area: total: 796,095 sq km
Status: 27th largest economy in the world in terms of purchasing power, and the 45th largest in absolute dollar terms.

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Gas, prolonged power outages hit industries hard

SIALKOT (December 28, 2010) : Due to prolonged power outages and unavailability of gas people of Sialkot are facing multiple problems in extremely cold weather. Industries are suffering badly because of unavailability of gas and electricity loadshedding as a result overall productivity has come to a complete halt.

The exporters and manufactures told that in time completion of foreign orders was not possible due to prolonged electricity of loadshedding and unavailability of gas. Expressing their fears they said that if ongoing situation continued than Pakistan would not only lose its creditability in international market but would face serious economic crisis.The international buyers are reluctant in giving new orders to Pakistani businessmen and consequently they are considering diverting their business channels to other countries for obtaining timely shipments of orders. After hectic efforts exporters of Sialkot had managed to restore the confidence of foreign buyers and succeed in obtaining orders. Under the prevailing gas and electricity loadshedding all their efforts have gone wasted and it was very unfortunate that government was not paying heed to the problems being faced by the business community of the country, they said. Sialkot based small and medium sized industries are earning over one billion US dollars through the exports of sports goods, surgical instruments, leather products, gloves of all sorts, textile items, sportswear and martial art uniforms.

The SME sector had been performing the role as engine of growth by adapting to the changing market and customers trends in an agile manner. Under the circumstances the personal efforts of exporters and manufactures have gone wasted because government has failed to protect the industrial sector of Sialkot. Sialkot is the only export-oriented city of the country and possesses entirely different export culture from other industrial cities of the country. The city needs exemption from electricity and gas loadshedding for ensuring uninterrupted productivity.